Hi, I’m Jennifer and I am the most indecisive person you will ever meet. I’m over think things so choosing between two places to eat on Sunday afternoon when church lets out is something I try to avoid every single week. Why? Well, because I take many things into consideration. Who’s going with us? Will they like it? Did they eat this type of food yesterday? Will there be a wait (I have a toddler, you know)? Am I on a diet this week? Those are the first set of questions that go through my head. Did I also tell you I’m completely ADD? It’s a horrible combination when each time I over think something my ADD kicks in and it leads me on a different path. Like right now, I’m way off base.

Back to the point of this post, Allen and I opted for new clothes and weekend trips this year for V-Day. He’s going fishing this weekend and I’m going to Blissdom next weekend. BUT, I thought, why don’t I do something creative and inexpensive for him so that he can have something on Valentine’s day. I thought perhaps a date night at home bag, I’ve seen those “pinned” all over the place recently. You know, a movie, popcorn, coke, candy, all in a cute little bag and ready for “date night” at home? Well, in the midst of searching for those I came across this cute idea for “Date Night In A Jar.”

I tweaked it just a little and created this “Date Night In A Jar” for Allen. Okay, and for me too I’m thinking this will help in a major way when we can’t decide what we want to do and neither of us wants to make the decision. Hence the reason I talked about my indecisiveness up there in the beginning.

I started with just a plain mason jar with a wide mouth. Little known fact, I have about a million mason jars in my laundry room. My grandmother cans veggies and such from the garden each year and her only request is that she gets the jars back for next year. That’s right, we aren’t mentioning to her that I used one for a craft project 😉

I used big popsicle sticks and spray painted them different colors. Each color represents a different type of date (and each color is explained on the tag) and the white sticks were used as fillers.

Red sticks have more expensive dates on them that require planning on our part.

Bed and Breakfast

Dinner at a fancy restaurant

Hotel stay for the night

Auburn home game and away game

Concert and dinner (his choice)

Concert and dinner (my choice)

Weekend away

Coupes Massage

Dark pink sticks have “at home” dates:

Chopped Challenge (like the television show on FoodNetwork)

Fondue and Almost Famous

Takeout and board games

1,000 piece puzzle and pizza

Football game and nachos

Popcorn and a chick-flick

Crosswords and breakfast for dinner

Make a dessert together

Friday Night Lights marathon

Homemade pizzas and an Italian movie

Light Pink dates have things we can do away from home but are less expensive than the red and don’t require as much planning.

Dinner and a movie (my choice and his choice)

Laser tag and go carts

Mexican night at Cocina Superior

Drive-In date

Dessert only date

Window shopping for the house

Bowling

The Melting Pot

Coffee Date

And a little key on the back of the tag for the colors.

I’m so excited about this and it eases my indecisive mind for sure. Plus, it’s a cute little craft to sit on the desk in the bedroom 🙂

Jennifer- you never cease to amaze me!! Seriously!!! This is absolutely genius!!! I am also a very indecisive person and now I think I will be making one of these for the hubs as a belated valentines day gift!! I love it!!! Thank you!!! Xoxox

What a great idea!!!!!! I LOVE THIS!!!! I need to do this for us. Seems like when we do get out without child, we really don’t know what to do with ourselves. This would remove all guess work! PERFECT!!!!!

I love this so much. My DH and I are in desperate need of date nights and working on our marriage and this seems so perfect to help out with that. I would love to know what you do for the Chopped Challenge. That is one of our favorite shows.

Great idea, but out of curiosity, do you guys have guidelines as to when or how often you choose a stick? Do you rotate between red, dark and light pink, or is it all left to chance? @Mommy2Maddox – I too want to know about the Chopped Challenge date!

LOL. I think the “No Pants Friday” stick is a clever idea. Imagine his face when he pulls THAT stick and wasn’t expecting it. You can say something like “Oh, how did that get in there? Well, pull another one and we’ll do both!”

I can’t believe that I FINALLY decide to start dabbling in this obsession called Pinterest, and the in the FIRST craft I click on I see Auburn! My heart did flips. WDE! My husband and I are stationed in Kansas and can’t WAIT to get back to Fort Benning. I am going to make this for his birthday next month. Thanks for the wonderful idea. BTW, I might be able to take you on as the most indesisive person in the world. 🙂

I just found this post via pinterest. WHAT A GREAT IDEA! Every time we have to pick what to do on a date it becomes such a huge production and I am as well super indecisive. Not only am I copying this idea for myself and my hubby, you officially have a new follower!

My mom had something like this as a chore list for my kids. She put a chore and payment on each stick. Thililt take take out trash $.50, water flowers $1.00 (she has lots of flowers), and anything else the boys might do at her house. If they wanted money for something they would work on the chore sticks and make as much as they offered, or as little as they needed. It was really a fun way for them to make money, and grandma got work done.

I love this idea! I am working on doing this for my husband and my family. I am however going to change the white sticks from fillers, to date nights that include the entire family. Thank you so much for the fun and creative idea!

Instead of popsicle sticks i found color foam that is very similar to the sticks. that way i dont have to paint the sticks because they’re already in 5 different colors! i plan on making this for my boyfriend for our 2 year anniversary of dating together. We always get stuck on things to do. loveee this idea!

This is fabulous! I will make one for the hubby and I. But I will also make one for my daughter and son-in-law, who just had twins!!! Theirs will be one free night (or day) of babysitting, two hours of housecleaning so mom can bond (or sleep), I will bring them a homemade meal, etc…So cool~

My husband and I have been married 32 years and are just a few months from being complete empty nesters but still working fulltime. I’m going to make this for him and hope it will solve our indecisiveness on what to do on a Saturday night.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful idea, I just finished making my date night jar with some changes. I did the same categories that you did plus another one, I added 20 blue and white stick with just restaurants on them, some new and some favorites, for when we just need to figure out what to eat! This was an awesome project, loved it!

Love this idea but I might make one with just restaurants – with 2 adults, 1 fussy teen and another fussy tween – picking a restaurant for a family dinner can be PAINFUL 🙂 I’ll use the same color sticks for all of us and then we each get to put the same number of choices in the jar so there aren’t any claims of favoritism…Thank you!

I found this via Pinterest (as a stalker – I’m still waiting for my invite!) and immediately crafted my own version using a mason jar, chalk paint, and the tongue depressors! I LOVE IT! Great idea that both me and my husband are excited about!

I really like this. My husband is deployed and we’re starting one now so when he gets back we will have a jar full of fun to pick from. He emails me his ideas and I add them to the jar with mine. Thank you.

I started mine last night and will finish this evening. I used a mason jar, natural wood colored tongue depressors and a variety of fine tipped sharpie markers to draw the emblems of our favorite restaurants, pictures of date ideas like going to our local stock car race track or to our local casino (I drew part of a craps table and some dice). I was shocked at my own creativity. YAY! I’m doing this as a surprise and will be giving it to him tomorrow evening. I hope he likes it!

Love this. My bf did something similar for me for my birthday except it was a box filled with different things corresponding to each activity. Like a mariners key chain, ad from a hotel, bag of popcorn, stuff like that. He also wrote a note explaining that I could bring one thing from each category when I came to visit since we are doing the long distance thing. I loved it and was so shocked that it came from him!

I came across this project on Pinterest. I am also very indecisive when it comes to anything! And, living far away from family, we don’t get many date nights. But I am starting to work on my own version of this as an anniversary gift for my husband. Thanks for such a great idea!

Thanks so much for this idea! My boyfriend and I are both very indecisive, so this is perfect for us! I plan on giving it to him for his birthday in a few weeks (along with some others things as well). I also added two extra sticks of each color for him to add in some ideas of his own. I can’t wait to see how much he likes this!

I love this idea! Thinking about doing “try something different” popsicle sticks like go to a restaurant never been to, or go to a concert that you don’t know the band or one i’ve always wanted to do “go to the airport and hop on the next flight for a weekend getaway” !

I just found this post/idea of yours and I LOVE it! I have been wanting to do something like this for a while now so that we aren’t always annoyed or to tired to come up with an idea and I think this is perfect!

Jennifer! I love this idea so much that it made its debut on my blog tonight (leannaranieri.blogspot.com). Thanks for such a great idea! I can’t wait to make one for the man in my life! Keep the ideas coming and thanks!

I had no thought that planning a bridal shower would use a lot of time but it was worth all the planning! I managed to locate an awesome bachelorette party scavenger hunt checklist and it supplied so much laughs, it was an wonderful night that we’ll remember forever! We customized our bachelorette party decorations with personalized quotes and pictures over at this web page… bridal shower

Brilliant! I was trying to figure out what to do for mine other half for a little side present to go with the big present I got him, and this works brilliantly! Oh, btw, WDE dearie. Current student right here.

I just finished making this for our 5th anniversary! I love that it allows us to have a diversity of choices and helps keep our plans fresh. Also, it is great for getting some things off our bucket list in a really fun fashion. Awesome idea! So easy to make for a busy working girl!

What are the white sticks?? LoL. I Love the idea. Maybe I’ll do one for my husband for Christmas. I don’t know where you live, but the melting pot would def. be on the $$$ in our area! haha. Thanks for the ideas thought! 🙂

SOOOO doing this because everytime it comes to doing something my husband and I never agree on anything cause we always say we can do whatever lol! tired of that so this will be freat for us. Im also going to do a kids one for my daughter filled with different things to do for her as well. Thank you GREAT IDEA!!!!

What a great idea! Whenever my husband and I have a date night that doesn’t revolve around a specific event (a play, a movie, etc.), we spend the entire day trying to figure out what to do. I like that this has it already planned out! The “his choice” or “her choice” is also a good idea. It takes the pressure off and makes it obvious who gets to choose! Thanks for sharing your idea! (Found it on Pinterest.)

My grandson used to get upset at being left behind when Mommy and Daddy went out for a date night – until we explained he was also on a date night with Grandma and Grandpa. This would be good for our ‘date nights’ but include make popcorn & a movie, go to Barnes and Nobles for hot chocolate and looking at books, go to the zoo, flying kites, camping in the backyard, make cookies. For the joint custody or weekend custody parents, this could work too – Daddy & me, or Mommy and me jars.

So, I put together a date night jar, but I am turning it into a “game” at my Best Friend’s bridal shower! I filled out one of each color as an example, and am letting the shower guests write their own date night ideas and names on the rest of the sticks. There is a set of instructions set up on the table so that everyone knows which color is which and they can fill out the sticks at their convenience throughout the day. I am not doing the following at my friend’s shower, but once everyone has filled out the sticks, you could have the bride vote for her favorite, and the person who wrote the winning stick could receive a prize! It is way more cute and fun than the traditional games they play at showers.

I just came across this on Pinterest, and I’m really excited about it. Not only am I going to make one for my husband and I, but I’m going to turn it into a Bridal shower activity for my sister’s shower! 🙂

Making these for my husband and other couple’s in our family as Christmas presents. Since we all live in the same city I have tailored some of the ideas and added some more. Here is my list. Thanks for the idea!
$$ Dates (have more expensive dates on them that require planning on our part.)
1. Dinner at a fancy restaurant
2. Hotel stay for the night
3. Bed and breakfast
4. Couples massage
Home Dates (Home dates require little planning and usually cost no money or very little.)
1. Cook a new meal together
2. Fondue over candle light
3. Takeout and board games
4. Football game and nachos
5. Popcorn and a chick-flick
6. Crosswords and breakfast for dinner
7. Make a dessert together and eat it!
8. Homemade pizzas and an Italian movie
9. Pick a book from our shelves and read it out loud together
10. Look through our wedding album or watch our wedding DVD (or some other photo album)
11. Plan our dream vacation together while eating ice cream
12. Listen to music and dance together
$ Dates (These are dates that require a little planning, but not very expensive. Something you can do really any weekend.)
1. Dessert-only date at Baker’s Crust
2. Window shop for the house
3. Go bowling
4. Coffee date
5. Try a new restaurant and/or cuisine
6. Miniature golf
7. Dinner and a movie (his choice)
8. Dinner and a movie (her choice)
9. Afternoon at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens
10. Go get frozen yogurt at Sweet Frog
11. Go ice skating
12. Picnic and feeding the animals at Maymont
13. Go see an IMAX film at the Science Museum
14. Go to VMFA
15. Go on a walk in the woods at the public park
16. Go out for brunch

I did the Date Jar at our wedding! All of our guests grabbed some sticks and wrote down date ideas for us. We decided not to look at them, but to be surprised each time we drew one out! Looking forward to seeing what our friends and family came up with…

this is so genius. I am totally doing this it would be perfect and so much fun for my husband and I! We can never decide where to go or what to do on date night & this takes the pressure off and makes it fun! LOVE

My boyfriend and I have been together for 4 1/2 years but have had a lot on our minds lately with finishing our degrees. I think this might by our saving grace and much needed way to settle on what to do considering we put so much pressure on the nights we do have together. I can actually keep a lot of the same ideas but I’m excited to come up with us-specific ones 😀 And who knows, now that we are done with finals, maybe he can help me make them! haha Thanks for sharing this! Best wishes!

This is such a cute idea!! And I absolutely love that it’s color coded – there are some great choices in there. I feel like I could use one of these even for my single life – when I know I SHOULD get out of my bed, but I really just am too lazy to make a decision. And there are things that I always forget – like rush tickets to the theater or orchestra. Maybe this would help me remember…

We love playing Date Night Dare. You can find it at http://www.datenightdare.com. We complete the challenge and pass it on to someone else. It is really fun and affordable and most of the things you can fit into a super busy schedule like ours. It has a lot of ideas similar to these plus hundreds more. I can’t wait for the next set to release.

Hi Jennifer – Just wanted to let you know that I love this project idea. I’m getting ready to kick off Kathi Lipp’s “The Marriage Project” on 2/14 and am using this as a pre-project craft idea. I linked to your blog – thanks for sharing 🙂

My husband is 2 weeks away from a year long deployment to Afghanistan. I’m wanting to make some changes while he is gone and find new ways for us to have fun together without the kids. I saw this post and I seriously had to hold back tears! I love this idea-it sounds like so much fun and I think it will be a fun and easy way for us to make time for each other! I am so excited to start this when he comes home!!! Such a great idea!!!

I do not write many remarks, but i did some searching and wound up here Date Night Jar.
And I do have a couple of questions for you if it’s allright. Could it be only me or does it look like some of the comments come across like they are coming from brain dead individuals? 😛 And, if you are writing on other online social sites, I’d
like to follow anything fresh you have to post.

Could you list of the complete urls of your public sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin
profile?

I loved your jar idea so much that I had to try my own! I mentioned you in my blog about it, & no worries I love giving credit where credit is due and you are so wonderful to provide such a helpful tutorial!

Thank you so much! This is fantastic! I fell so in love with this idea that I ran straight out to buy supplies. I did make one modification that I loved: I added a fourth color for dreams and wishes down the road. Ideas in this category include a European vacation, a trip to Mexico, etc. I divided all the sticks into colors and then in half: half for me to fill out, half for my other half to write. I’m giving it to him tonight: I hope he likes it!

This was probably one of my first pins. Of course, I’m pin happy but haven’t done it yet. I finally made this for a bridal shower that I attended this weekend. It was a huge hit! My “tongue depressors” (lots of nurses at this event) were three shades of purple cuz the bride-to-be is a huge Ravens fan. I tried to make some of the events specific to the area where she lives while others were more generic. She read about a half dozen to the attendees when I suggested, gently, that we move along and she could read them at her leisure later. It was passed around. Must admit, after opening a bunch of Crate and Barrel presents that were all variations on plain white dinnerware, this homemade gift was a bright spot in the afternoon. Several of the sticks read “Make popcorn and…..(watch a rom/com or play a board game or scary movie)”My other gift was a stove top Whirley Pop popcorn maker. The gifts went well together. Thanks for a great gift idea!

Wow, you are so creative! This is so sweet, time saver (sometimes me and my guy spend more time arguing where to go for dinner than the dinner it self), very easy DIY too. My friend used to make like coupon, same with this, but I think this one is much better because of the fact that it involved the partner. This is the first time that I visited your site and it is really nice..:)

I made our date night jar last night. I’m looking forward to this! Hubby and I aren’t really good at making date night a priority and want to change that. Our plan is on Thursday one of us (alternating weeks) will pick on out. It is that persons responsibility to plan that date for the following week. We’ve been married 14 years with three daughters and I think this is a great way to keep the fire burning! Thx

date nights are good to relight the fire with your lover or spouse.to show how much you care and what they mean to you. show them how much you appreciate them. to show your love. it also give you a break in your daily routine or life to get away.to reunite feelings .

[…] up on gas, went grocery shopping, a trip to the post office, baking foccaccia bread, creating a Date Jar, running back to the grocery store for things I forgot, then running to Turkey Hill for something […]

[…] wanted to make TGF a present for our One Year Anniversary, and decided to make something like the Date Night In A Jar made by Jennifer over at Life In The Green House. I wasn’t able to find popsicle sticks (my […]

[…] Date Night Jar – This is a fun idea that I found on Pinterest. Make a jar filled with popsicle sticks that each have a date idea on them and are color-coded for how much time/money they involve. When it’s time for a date night, y’all can just pull out a popsicle stick (say, a red one for an at-home, free date or a white one for a “fancy” night out) and the decision of what to do is made for you! […]

[…] holiday season? Give your significant other a jar of dates! This clever idea came from the blog Life In The Green House. Fill the jar with popsicle sticks, sticky notes or even paper hearts that are written with […]

[…] have to be extravagant things, just sharing time together. Inspired by a Pinterest find from Life in the Green House for date night ideas, I decided to make a pick and mix family fun jar full of activities for us to […]

[…] Here is where I got my inspiration for this gift idea. For those of you interested in at-home date ideas, I will be posting our dates for the month in a series titled “At-Home Dates.” Be looking for the first post in the series sometime in the next week. […]

[…] Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, but who wants to save all the fun and excitement for just one day? Try making a date night jar to keep the love going all year round. It’s an easy idea for couples looking to mix things up, or maybe you both are just indecisive about what you want to do. I have a quick tutorial of how to make the jar, but it’s completely customizable. This great tutorial comes from Life In The Green House. […]

[…] other and I want to do something special. I decided to go with hand-made presents, specifically the Date Night Jar. My boyfriend and I didn’t really date, we just started a relationship (that’s a […]

[…] ideas? For date nights at home check out Kristen’s blog. For ideas coded by price check out Jennifer’s blog. For some more affordable ideas check out Emily Co’s post on Popsugar. For even more ideas […]

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[…] I made a date night jar for two three reasons; 1. For when we just don’t know what to do, 2. Because money is going to be really tight with all the work we are getting ready to put into the house, 3. Because I needed to scratch something off my “Pintrest To Do List.” Here are the orginal blog post that inspired me here and here. […]

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[…] have to be extravagant things, just sharing time together. Inspired by a Pinterest find from Life in the Green House for date night ideas, I decided to make a pick and mix family fun jar full of activities for us to […]

[…] but not having a ton of time to go shopping or pull off something spectacular, I decided to make a Date Night Jar. I’ve updated it this year, for the third year in a row and I must say that we’re truly […]

[…] what to do for the day/night sometimes seems like a nightmare. For me, its my indecisiveness like Jennifer which is who I got this idea from along with Pinterest ideas. This is a great idea because there are […]

[…] And then I found this – It’s this fantastic idea that requires eating a WHOLE lot of Popsicles to achieve (okay, well you can buy a pack of them at the store) to create a fun and somewhat spontaneous date experience. Color code all of your date ideas by cost and planning time (three categories ranging from super easy to plan and inexpensive to requires a lot of planning and/or expensive) then place them in a jar to be drawn at random. Find out more about the date night jar. […]

[…] Date Night Jar – Life In The Green House – Create a DIY Date Night Jar … I started with just a plain mason jar with a wide mouth. Little known fact, I have about a million mason jars in my laundry room…. […]

[…] Date Night Jar – Life In The Green House – Update: You can see an updated Date Night In A Jar post here. Check out the entire Stick It In A Jar series, here. Be sure to “like” Life In The Green House on …… […]

[…] Date Night Jar – Life In The Green House – Update: You can see an updated Date Night In A Jar post here. Check out the entire Stick It In A Jar series, here. Be sure to “like” Life In The Green House on …… […]

[…] Date Night Jar – Life In The Green House – Update: You can see an updated Date Night In A Jar post here. Check out the entire Stick It In A Jar series, here. Be sure to “like” Life In The Green House on …… […]

[…] from the blog Life in the Green House through Pinterest. You can find the original instructions here. You take a bunch of popsicle sticks, write down some ideas for things to do, and stick it in a […]

[…] Date Night in a Jar -One of my favorites is a “Date Night in a Jar” post I found over on Lifeinthegreenhouse.com blog. She put together a super simple way of always having something creative to do for date night and putting the ideas on Popsicle sticks in a mason jar. Color coded for type of date: at home, night out but not too expensive, and more costly, more planning needed dates. […]

[…] we likely would only remember a few of them. For my gift to Chance, I used an idea I saw on another blog post I found on Pinterest (bless Pinterest). It’s essentially a jar filled with popsicle […]

[…] Date Night in Jar – Life in the Green House – Update: You can see an updated Date Night In A Jar post here. Check out the entire Stick It In A Jar series, here. Be sure to “like” Life In The Green House on …… […]

[…] like us, you know how hard it can be to have something planned for date night. I came across this date night jar and I think it is a BRILLIANT idea! The different colored sticks are for how much planning and […]

[…] Date Night Jar – Life In The Green House – Create a DIY Date Night Jar … I started with just a plain mason jar with a wide mouth. Little known fact, I have about a million mason jars in my laundry room. […]

[…] nights. It’s great that they already know the importance of spending time alone together. The date night jar idea, such as that one by Life in the Green House that I saw on Pinterest, is totally cute, but a little […]

[…] like us, you know how hard it can be to have something planned for date night. I came across this date night jar and I think it is a BRILLIANT idea! The different colored sticks are for how much planning and […]

[…] Popsicle stick date night ideas. They’re color coded by expensiveness and level of preparation/involvement (a few hours vs. a weekend away). There are great date ideas here, but you can also find approximately 1,000 more to add in as you see fit. Also, you can usually get colored popsicle sticks at Dollar Tree so you don’t have to worry about painting anything. […]